


One Fine Day

by narsus



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 18:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narsus/pseuds/narsus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All he really feels these days is dull ache, but at least he's figured out the solution to that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Fine Day

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Endeavour belongs to Mammoth Screen, Masterpiece, ITV and others.

Opera was all well and good but it wasn’t meant to bear all that much resemblance to real life. At least that was what Endeavour kept telling the bottom of his pint glass at any rate. It wasn’t a sensible conversation to start with, rattling around in his head an inopportune moments, not least of all because it sounded suspiciously, in tone, like his late father’s comment about the police. Not that he could narrow it down to that direct of an argument. He wasn’t going to fool anyone if he suddenly took objection to Madam Butterfly’s most famous aria. If he hadn’t taken a dislike to it on account of Rosalind Stromming then nothing was going to change his opinion. And, when he really dared think about it, it wasn’t the aria that he objected to. It was hardly the fault of composer or soprano or anyone else besides that the longing for someone who, in the end, would never come, spoke so starkly to him. Besides, he wasn’t waiting, he had more sense than that and nobody was ever going to compare a detective constable to a faithful Japanese bride.

Sometimes he wondered if Oxford itself was the problem. The strangely separated and insular nature of the place. Town and gown and never the twain should meet. The colleges certainly, had long ago lost their splendour in his eyes, and the academics that inhabited them started to look like spoilt children, bickering over their toys. He didn’t miss it but then neither could he say he was glad he’d left either. It was hard to feel anything about it anymore, and if the memory hurt, just a little, it was with the same dull ache that everything about that time did. Had he stayed there, amongst those dreaming spires, he might have become someone different entirely. Someone so caught up in his own thoughts and dreams, in research and lectures and papers to be published, that he would have been oblivious to everything else beyond those sacred walls. He’d have kept his illusions, his foolish belief that he’d never find himself caught up in a fatalistic longing.

As it is, he’s stuck with what he’s got: an exam to sit, a desk at a police station, and colleagues who can’t seem to get over the fact that he’s even been near a college. There’s nothing dramatic about his life. There’s no room in police work for high-minded, sentiment, suicidal, longing. There is no Pinkerton and he’s certainly no Butterfly. Butterfly would be far more dignified, far too regal to drink herself to sleep on only reasonable scotch. She’d be far too faithful to respond to the sly flirtation that had crept up upon her by surprise, far too noble to succumb to Yamadori’s advances. She most certainly wouldn’t have ended an evening lying on a bed, drunk, with Peter Jakes leaning over her. Except, if real life, for all that it was worth, followed its inevitable course, Jakes shouldn’t have apologised, got up off the bed and left.

He couldn’t even get Yamadori to take advantage of him. He was that pathetic. Which was why his on-going conversation with the bottom of a glass had, at least, the benefit of stopping him from trying to do anything else foolish. None of it mattered anyway. It was more of a last attempt to feel anything at all. The only real feeling he could confess to these days was a sad, dull, ache that didn’t quite belong to any particular circumstance. It pervaded his entire existence now and he couldn’t differentiate it from any other feeling anymore. It was a shame he’d been sent down, a shame he’d fallen for Inspector Thursday, a shame he’d tried, half-heartedly, to seduce both Rosalind Stromming and Peter Jakes. All of it was unfortunate at best. None of it met anything like the criteria for operatic melodrama.

At least, so the conversation with a good local ale went, it was probably a good thing that nothing in his life really justified the melodrama he suspected he might feel otherwise inclined to. There was nothing to really justify a nocturnal, stumbling, walk down by the Thames, that might otherwise end in tragedy. Not that it struck him as tragedy per se. It would be an ignanamous end, just as dull and insignificant as everything else, so perhaps it would be fitting. A night time tumble into the river, too drunk to fight the current, too resigned to care. There’d be an inquest, questions about what on earth he’d been doing there at that time of night, about what could possibly have happened to him that he ended up there. They’d probably think it was a murder enquiry. Young, educated, constables didn’t usually throw themselves into the river after all. Sensibly speaking, the middle of the week wasn’t the time to do that sort of thing. If he was going to speculate, the best time would be on a Friday, at the start of a weekend, when nobody would miss him till Monday. Nobody would think to call on him on a Friday night either. Even if he didn’t return to his lodgings, he might easily have gone away for the weekend, or, more likely, be simply keeping himself to himself as he usually did. Friday, then, would be the best time for it, if he ever felt inclined to do anything.

Having laid out a plan seems to quieten the dull ache in his chest. He has a solution, an exit strategy, an escape. And if it ever becomes too much, he knows, in the generalities, how best to get it done. He can turn his back on all this whenever he likes, whenever he wants, and nobody will be able to stop him. In truth, he suppose that nobody will notice, which is far too close to knowing that nobody will care. He can leave this all behind, and while it won’t be with the sort of glorious theatrics that men compose operas about, it will be in keeping with the general theme of his life. Not today, but perhaps another, perhaps someday soon, one fine day...

**Author's Note:**

> Of course the title of the aria “Un Bel Di Vedremo” is translated as “One Fine Day”.


End file.
